The advancement of quantum computing poses no immediate threat to the leading cryptocurrency, according to a report by CoinShares.
The company described the issue as a “predictable engineering challenge,” rather than a crisis.
Christopher Bendiksen, Head of Research at CoinShares, criticized popular assessments of the network’s vulnerability. Previously, researchers at Chaincode Labs suggested that 20% to 50% of all coins are at risk of being hacked. CoinShares believes these figures combine different threat categories and distort the real picture.
According to the company, only outdated P2PK addresses with publicly visible keys are genuinely at risk. These hold about 1.6 million BTC (8% of the supply). However, the amount on wallets whose compromise could truly crash the market is only 10,200 BTC.
The remaining coins at risk are spread across 32,000 addresses with an average balance of 50 BTC. Hacking them would take too long, even under the most optimistic technological scenarios.
The Technical Gap
The report’s authors highlighted the weakness of current quantum computers. Cracking a public key in a day would require a system with 13 million physical qubits, 100,000 times more powerful than the most advanced machines today.
“Google Willow has only 105 qubits. Adding each subsequent qubit exponentially complicates maintaining system stability,” explained Ledger’s CTO Charles Guillemet.
Back in January, analyst James Check stated that the primary weakness of the leading cryptocurrency was large-scale sales by long-term holders, not concerns over quantum computing.
Later, experts at Benchmark described the threat to Bitcoin as “long-term” and “manageable.”